Lifeboat Foundation

Five prototypes were tested before the project was shelved.

In what might seem counter-intuitive at first, the U.S. Army supported the development of a helicopter that had no engine. One can even visit the Army’s Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker in Alabama to catch a glimpse of this design by the American Helicopter Company that is fondly called Jet Jeep.

The Jet Jeep was thought of many decades ago as the solution for a light observation needed by the Army. The U.S. Army was looking for a flight-capable option for light surveillance and by that, it meant enough to carry one or two people at the most. This is quite like the problem jet pack makers are trying to solve these days. But this was way back in the 1950s and helicopters and aircraft were largely the way flying worked.

Continue reading “The US Army Built Engineless Helicopters in the ‘50s. Here is Why It Didn’t End Well” »

Venus could actually be a second home to humanity someday.

Welcome back to our ongoing “Interplanetary” series. Today, we take a look at Earth’s “Sister Planet,” Venus! Given the extreme conditions present on this planet, you might say that Venus is the “evil sister” of Earth. And yet, people could live there someday in any number of ways. All it would take is the right kind of resources, dedication, and knowledge.

Continue reading “Conquering Earth’s Evil Sister: What Would It Take to Make Venus Our Home?” »

Behold Israel’s multitasking skills.

In a world where weapon systems heavily depend on advanced electronics and technology to coordinate attacks, it makes sense to deploy highly reusable and cheap electronic warfare (EW) tactics to counter them. An Israel-based manufacturer of such systems, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), has now introduced the ability to target multiple threats simultaneously.

Although electronic warfare is a new age weapon system, designers of the technology still follow the archaic methods of ‘point and shoot,’ severely limiting their targeting capacity. Not only does one need more weapon systems to counter a larger threat, but the response time also ends up being longer when you are targeting your threats in a serial order. IAI’s new offerings have fundamentally changed how electronic warfare systems are perceived and how they ought to work.

Squeezing more data density into the 3.5-inch hard drive form factor.

The new type of catalyst, known as a biohybrid photocatalyst, contains a light-harvesting protein that absorbs light and transfers the energy to a metal-containing catalyst. This catalyst then uses the energy to perform reactions that could be useful for synthesizing pharmaceuticals or converting waste products into biofuels or other useful compounds.

“By replacing harmful conditions and reagents with light, photocatalysis can make pharmaceutical, agrochemical, and fuel synthesis more efficient and environmentally compatible,” says Gabriela Schlau-Cohen, an associate professor of chemistry at MIT and the senior author of the new study.

REE Automotive has revealed Leopard, its autonomous concept vehicle based on a brand new ultra-modular EV platform design. The full-scale concept is intended for customers, including last-mile autonomous and electric delivery companies, delivery fleet operators, e-retailers, and technology companies seeking to build fully autonomous solutions.

Developed with leading global delivery and technology companies focused on autonomous delivery and Mobility as a Service (MaaS) fleets, the Leopard concept vehicle measures 3.4 meters in length and just 1.4 meters in width. It is built on a home-brewed platform that contains the batteries, along with REEcorner units, front-wheel-steer, rear-wheel-drive, steering, suspension, motor, gearbox, and braking components.

Leopard is powered by a 50 kWh battery of unspecified range and an undisclosed type of electric motor that provides a top speed of 60 mph (96 km/h). It has a cargo capacity of 180 cubic feet (5 cubic meters) and a gross vehicle weight rating of 2 tonnes (2.2 tons). The vehicle is also designed to carry significantly more cargo due to REE’s low, flat floor.

Turbulence makes many people uneasy or downright queasy. And it’s given researchers a headache, too. Mathematicians have been trying for a century or more to understand the turbulence that arises when a flow interacts with a boundary, but a formulation has proven elusive.

Now an international team of mathematicians, led by UC Santa Barbara professor Björn Birnir and the University of Oslo professor Luiza Angheluta, has published a complete description of boundary layer turbulence. The paper appears in Physical Review Research, and synthesizes decades of work on the topic. The theory unites empirical observations with the Navier-Stokes equation—the mathematical foundation of fluid dynamics—into a mathematical formula.

This phenomenon was first described around 1920 by Hungarian physicist Theodore von Kármán and German physicist Ludwig Prandtl, two luminaries in fluid dynamics. “They were honing in on what’s called boundary layer turbulence,” said Birnir, director of the Center for Complex and Nonlinear Science. This is turbulence caused when a flow interacts with a boundary, such as the fluid’s surface, a pipe wall, the surface of the Earth and so forth.

Are we really only a moment away from “The Singularity,” a technological event that will usher in a new era in human evolution?

A robot-assisted surgery was completed in Israel using the Da Vinci surgical system, by which the surgeon sits at a console and controls the robot.